Add video from your networked storage into Movie Maker
Windows Live Movie Maker, having started off as a glass hammer, has made significant strides in the areas of functionality and usability. If you haven’t already pushed all the buttons in the new release, I recommend you check out Paul’s thorough review.
While playing around with Movie Maker, I tried to import some video content stored on my HP MediaSmart. Just my luck, it’s not supported. As you can plainly see on the right, Microsoft suggests I copy my content – which could theoretically be gigabytes in size – to my local disk.
Uh. How about no?
Poking around a bit, I noticed Movie Maker has an undocumented override switch... but it comes at a tiny cost: The network share housing your media must may need to allow unfettered Guest access. For those that aren’t trying to hide porn on their MediaSmart servers, this isn’t a big deal. I suspect this is either a temporary code issue revolving around the lack of user impersonation or a security feature. Either case, it’s annoying.
(Update August 21, 2009: Tom Warren mentioned he did not require Guest access. YMMV.)
To run the roadblock, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\Movie Maker and add a DWORD value named AllowNetworkFiles. Afterwards, simply double-click it and set its data to either 0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled).
Keyboard cat, inside the new Windows Live Movie Maker, playing me off.
Thanks for discovering this… I am also using an HP MediaSmart. Hopefully the Live MovieMaker team addresses any remaining issues and enable this for the next release.
Perfect! I’m also using a WHS (home built) and hated having to copy over my pictures/movies just to use WLMM.
Thanks!
Or use Vista’s Movie Maker which isn’t lame and use another better uploading tool for YouTube etc. Microsoft lameware is getting dumbed by every release, even if this was a commercial app, it would have been super-lame because any consumer product from MS is never full-featured post the Windows XP days. People won’t get anything except lame format support, flowers and babies in screenshots and timeline-less editing from this crippleware. Or try MPEG Video Wizard DVD which is the best consumer video editor right now.
I was a huge fan of Microsoft in the 90s when Windows 95 came along. But the company has started dumbing down its products in the 2000s so much so that I feel helpless as a power user and the Linux platform is too geeky for me. Windows Media Player, Windows Explorer, Live crapware, Search.,heck even Office (2007 and 2010). Everything is super-dumbed-down because they have appararently run out of ideas to make the program feature-packed. (Yet somehow they manage to make it bloated on memory usage in spite of dumbing down and removing features in favor of over simplifying). I must be living under a rock because I don’t get it why less is more in terms of software features. Fortunately, there’s one more platform that offers me PROFESSIONAL-grade full-featured AND modern software ecosystem and looking today at Movie Maker has urged me to break the ice once and for all. By 2020, Microsoft may give us an OS that only has a Start button, a launcher and an internet browser. Everything else happens behind the scenes, No power left to the poor user.
Yet another reason why I have a “whiny forum and blogger user” filter on my FireFox
Rafael: Great find, it will help me access all the non-existant video files on my now-defunct home server… (Having to move, and hosting my video files on 400 miles away won’t make much sense)
I hope it doesn’t go nutso at me for using other methods of storage like Zip drives, DriveSpace3 compressed Floppies (120mb per disk) and E-SCSI drives…
Which software do you use to take these stunning screenshots?
Window Clippings. Worth every penny.
That works beautifully, thank you! Saves me from clogging up up my local drive, which isn’t that big to begin with now I have a NAS.
If I were you, I would change the heading to “Live Movie Maker” because “Movie Maker” it is a totally different software which this article refers to.
Anyway just disappointed that Microsoft didn’t make this software compatible with XP, yet they must sell and sell and sell!!!